Chapter 19
On a gala banquet at the palace and contact with the other side
President Hu Jintao began his three-day state visit to Sweden by greeting the replica of the East Indiaman ship G?theborg, which had returned that very day to Gothenburg, the city it was named for, after a journey to China and back.
The original had made the same journey 250 years earlier. That time, its adventure had gone well despite storms, pirate waters, illness and starvation. But with half a mile left to go to the home harbour, the ship ran aground in absolutely beautiful weather and eventually sank.
Annoying, to say the least. But revenge was had on Saturday, 9 June 2007. The replica managed to do everything the original had, plus the last half mile. G?theborg was greeted by thousands of cheering onlookers, among them the president of China, who took the opportunity to visit the Volvo factory in Torslanda as he was in the area. He himself had insisted on this, and he had his rhymes and reasons.
The fact was, Volvo had been sulking about the Swedish government and its machinery for quite some time, since the state persisted in buying BMWs every time it needed an extra-secure vehicle. Volvo’s upper management was nearly killing itself in exasperation that the Swedish royal family and ministers in the Swedish government would climb out of German cars at each official event. They had even built an armed model and demonstrated it for the security police, but it was no use. It was actually one of the engineers who had come up with the brilliant idea of offering the specially built, cream-coloured prototype of a brand-new Volvo S89 with four-wheel drive and a 315-horsepower, V8 engine to the president of the People’s Republic of China. Worthy of a president any day.
Thought the engineer.
And the Volvo executives.
And – as it turned out – the president in question.
The matter was arranged ahead of time via discreet channels. The car was proudly presented to the president at the factory in Torslanda on Saturday morning, and it would be formally handed over at Arlanda Airport the next day, just prior to the president’s journey home.
In the meantime, he was invited to a gala banquet at the royal palace.
* * *
Nombeko had been sitting in the reading room at the Norrt?lje library, going through newspaper after newspaper. She started with Aftonbladet, which devoted four pages to the conflict between . . . not Israel and Palestine, but a contestant in a singing contest on TV and a mean judge who had said that the artist in question couldn’t sing.
‘He can go fly a kite,’ retorted the artist, who for one thing really couldn’t sing and for another didn’t really know why kite flying was to be ridiculed.
Newspaper number two for Nombeko was Dagens Nyheter, which insisted on writing about important things and whose sales were therefore worse than ever. It was typical for DN to lead on its front page with a state visit instead of a fight in a TV studio.
Accordingly, the current issue had reports on President Hu Jintao, on G?theborg’s return to port – and on the fact that the president would be coming to Stockholm for a gala banquet with the king and the prime minister, among others, at the palace.
This information probably wouldn’t have been worth much if it hadn’t been for Nombeko’s immediate reaction when she saw the picture of President Hu.
She looked at it and then looked at it once more. And then she said to herself, out loud, ‘Wow, Mr Chinese Official went and became the president!’
So both the Swedish prime minister and the president of China would be marching into the palace that evening. If Nombeko stood among all the curious onlookers and shouted at the prime minister as he passed, the best-case scenario was that she would be carried off, and the worst-case scenario was that she would be arrested and, by extension, deported.
However, if she were to shout at the president of China in Wu Chinese, the result would be different. If Hu Jintao’s memory wasn’t too short, he would recognize her. And if, in addition, he had even a modicum of curiosity, he would approach her to find out how on earth it happened that the South African interpreter from his past was standing here in the courtyard of the Swedish palace.
And with that, Nombeko and Holger Two had only one tiny person between themselves and the prime minister, or the king, for that matter. President Hu had all the necessary qualifications to act as a bridge between the involuntary owners of an atomic bomb on the one hand and the people they had been failing to get hold of for twenty years on the other.
Where all of this would lead them remained to be seen, but it was unlikely that the prime minister would just wave them away, bomb and all. Rather, he would probably summon the police and have them locked up. Or something in between; the only thing that was certain was that Nombeko and Holger Two had to give it a shot.
But there wasn’t much time. It was already eleven in the morning. Nombeko had to bike back to Sj?lida, involve Holger Two in the plan but, for God’s sake, not the two crazies, or for that matter Gertrud, start the truck and make it all the way to the castle well before six, when the president would make his entrance.
* * *
Things went wrong right away. Holger Two and Nombeko had sneaked into the barn and started to unscrew the far-too-authentic licence plates in order to replace them with the ones they had stolen many years ago. But, as he so often did, One was sitting in the hayloft above them, and the activity around the truck woke him from his mental slumber. His reaction was to jump silently through the trapdoor in the loft in order to get Celestine. Before Holger Two and Nombeko had finished with the licence plates, One and his girlfriend had forced their way into the barn and were sitting in the cab of the potato truck.
‘Oh, so you were planning to sneak off without us, with the bomb and all,’ said Celestine.
‘Oh, so you were planning that!’ said Holger One.
But then his brother snapped.
‘That is enough!’ he roared. ‘Get out of that cab right now, you damned parasites! There is not a chance in the world that I am going to let you ruin this opportunity, too. Not a chance in the world!’
Whereupon Celestine pulled out a pair of handcuffs and shackled herself to the glove compartment. Once a demonstrator, always a demonstrator.
Holger One got to drive. Celestine sat beside him, in an unnatural position thanks to being handcuffed to the truck. Nombeko was next to her, and Two was farthest to the right, at an adequate distance from his brother.
As the potato truck rolled past the house, Gertrud came out onto the steps.
‘Buy some food while you’re out – we have nothing to eat!’
One and Celestine were informed by Nombeko that the point of this trip was to get rid of the bomb, since it so happened that circumstances were right to make direct contact with Prime Minister Reinfeldt.
Holger Two added that he would put both his brother and his horrid girlfriend through the eight-row potato-planter if they did anything besides sit where they now sat during the trip. Holding their tongues.
‘We sold the eight-row planter,’ Holger One attempted.
‘Then I will buy a new one,’ said his brother.
The gala banquet at the royal palace was to begin at 6 p.m. The guests would be welcomed in the Inner Guards’ Hall, after which the company would repair to the banquet itself in the White Sea Hall.
It wasn’t easy for Nombeko to get into position in the inner courtyard, so that she would be sure to catch President Hu Jintao’s attention. Curious onlookers among the general public were being gently pushed back along the sides of the courtyard, never less than fifty yards from where the guests would make their entrances. Would she even recognize him at that distance? He would surely recognize her, at least. How many black Africans spoke Wu Chinese?
As it turned out, recognition was no problem at any distance. There was an obvious hubbub among the security police as President Hu of the People’s Republic of China and his wife, Liu Yongqing, arrived. Nombeko took a breath and shouted in the president’s dialect:
‘Hello there, Mr Chinese Official! It’s been a long time since we were on safari in Africa together!’
Within four seconds, Nombeko was surrounded by two security police in civilian clothes. Within another four seconds, they had calmed down a bit, because the black woman didn’t look like a threat: her hands were fully visible and she wasn’t about to throw herself at the presidential couple. However, she would, of course, immediately be escorted from the area.
Except . . .
What was going on?
The president stopped short as he was entering the castle; he had left the red carpet and his wife behind him, and now he was on his way up to the black woman. And . . . and . . . he was smiling at her!
Some days were more difficult than others, when one belonged to the security police. Now the president was saying something to the demonstrator . . . she was a demonstrator, right? And the demonstrator answered.
Nombeko noticed the security officers’ confusion. So she said in Swedish, ‘You gentlemen needn’t look so frightened. The president and I are old friends and we’re just going to exchange a few words.’
Then she turned to President Hu again and said, ‘I think we’ll have to save the reminiscing for some other time, Mr Chinese Official. Or Mr President, as it has so quickly and amusingly become.’
‘Yes, it has.’ Hu Jintao smiled. ‘And maybe not entirely without your assistance, Miss South Africa.’
‘You’re far too kind, Mr President. But now the fact is – if I may get straight to the point – I’m sure you remember the crazy engineer from my old homeland, the one who invited you on safari and to dinner? Right. Things didn’t go particularly well for him after that, and that’s just as well, but he did succeed in scraping up a few atomic bombs, with the help of myself and others.’
‘Yes, right, six of them, if I remember correctly,’ said Hu Jintao.
‘Seven,’ said Nombeko. ‘On top of everything else, he was bad at counting. He locked the seventh in a secret room, and then you could say it ended up lost. Or . . . actually, it was in my luggage . . . when I came to Sweden.’
‘Sweden has nuclear weapons?’ Hu Jintao said in surprise.
‘No, Sweden doesn’t. But I do. And I’m in Sweden. So to speak.’
Hu Jintao was silent for a second or two. Then he said, ‘Miss South Africa, what do you want me . . . what’s your name, by the way?’
‘Nombeko,’ said Nombeko.
‘Miss Nombeko, what do you want me to do with this information?’
‘Well, if you would be so kind as to pass it on to the king with whom you are about to shake hands, and if he would be so kind as to pass it on to the prime minister, perhaps he could come out and tell me what we should do with the aforementioned bomb. It’s not the kind of thing you can just take to the recycling centre, after all.’
President Hu Jintao didn’t know what a recycling centre was (China’s climate goals weren’t quite on that level), but he understood the situation. And he realized that circumstances dictated that he immediately end his conversation with Miss Nombeko.
‘I promise you, miss, that I will convey the matter to both the king and the prime minister, and I am pretty sure I can guarantee that you can expect an immediate reaction.’
With that, President Hu returned to his startled wife and the red carpet, which led into the Inner Guards’ Hall where Their Majesties were waiting.
All the guests had arrived; there was nothing more to see. Tourists and other onlookers dispersed in different directions with different goals for the rest of the beautiful June evening in Stockholm in the year 2007. Nombeko remained there, alone, waiting for something – but she didn’t know what.
After twenty minutes, a woman approached. She shook Nombeko’s hand as she introduced herself in a low voice; she was the prime minister’s assistant and she had been asked to bring the woman to a more discreet corner of the castle.
Nombeko thought this was a good idea, but she added that she wanted to bring along the truck that was parked outside the courtyard. The assistant said that this was fine; it was on the way.
Holger One was still behind the wheel, with Celestine next to him (she had hidden the handcuffs in her handbag). The assistant got into the cab, too, whereupon it became a bit crowded in there. Nombeko and Holger Two climbed into the back.
It was a short trip. First up K?llargr?nd and then down Slottsbacken. Then a left turn into the car park and all the way back up. Perhaps it was best for the driver to back up the last bit? Stop! That’s good.
The assistant jumped out, knocked on an unassuming door, slipped in when it opened and disappeared. Then, one after another, the prime minister came out, followed by the king and President Hu Jintao, with his interpreter. The Chinese president really did seem to have vouched for Nombeko and her gang, because all the security personnel remained in the doorway.
Nombeko recognized the Chinese interpreter, even though twenty years had gone by.
‘So, you didn’t die after all,’ she said.
‘Well, it’s still not too late,’ the interpreter replied sourly. ‘Considering what you’re apparently driving around with.’
Holger Two and Nombeko invited the prime minister, the king and the president up into the back of the potato truck. The prime minister didn’t hesitate. He wanted to find out if the appalling claim was true. And the king followed him. The president of China, however, considered the whole thing to be a matter of domestic politics, and backed his way into the palace, unlike his curious interpreter, who very much wanted to get a glimpse of the nuclear weapon in question. The bodyguards in the doorway were fidgety. What were the king and the prime minister doing in the back of a potato truck? It didn’t feel right.
Ironically enough, at that very moment a lost group of Chinese tourists and their guide approached, so the door to the back of the truck had to be shut in a hurry. At this point, the Chinese interpreter, who had got in the way, found his fingers shut in the door. Nombeko and the others could hear his ‘Help, I’m dying!’ outside, while Holger Two knocked on the window to the cab and asked One, behind the wheel, to turn on the lights in the back.
Holger One obediently turned on the lights, turned round – and saw the king! And the prime minister!
But above all, the king. Good God!
‘It’s the king, Dad,’ Holger One whispered to Ingmar Qvist in heaven.
And his father Ingmar replied:
‘Drive, my son! Drive!’
And Holger drove.